


Promise of an Unbroken Boy

by elesary



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Juvie, M/M, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, canon- typical discussion of self harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elesary/pseuds/elesary
Summary: Neil is caught by the police with Mary's burning body and is sent to juvie in Oakland where he is assigned to share a cell with one Andrew Doe, who promises him Exy, if only Neil will tell him all of his secrets. With no access to tinted contacts and hair dye, he agrees, it's only a matter of time until he's killed after all. What does he have to lose?But Andrew's found someone who knows what a promise means, and he'll be damned if he lets that go without a fight.
Relationships: Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Matt Boyd/Danielle "Dan" Wilds, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick/Erik Klose
Comments: 147
Kudos: 273





	1. Blood and Sand

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this opens up with a scene of attempted rape and successful murder so take care of yourselves.

“Abram! Run!” His mother cries , crumbling to the floor around the heavy pipe Jackson Plank sinks into her stomach. He can’t quite see from where he’s crouched behind an industrial spool, but he thinks he sees blood leaking from her mouth. 

He turns, poised to sprint away, obedience to his mother has been beaten in to his very marrow at this point, but. But his mother hasn’t gotten back up yet. Her eyes are glassy and she’s trying to crawl away, and Jackson is unbuckling his belt with a sick leer. 

No. Abram meets his mother’s eyes. They are unfocused but determined. She is dazed and glaring at him and he knows - _knows_ \- what Plank is going to do to her. She wants it to be a distraction, so he can escape. His stomach clenches, and if he had eaten in the past two days, he would throw up. _Go_! she mouths. _Abram!_

He can’t. He knows that this isn’t the first time that his mother has used her body as a distraction so that they can escape, but he can’t leave her, not like this. Abram creeps around the spool as Plank reaches down and yanks Mary closer to him by her ankles, easily avoiding her weak kicks, and roughly shoves her pants down, fisting himself and leering as Mary chants “no, no, no.”

She’s not talking to Jackson, but he laughs as if she is. Her eyes, furious and promising retribution, are locked on Abram. She is going to kill him later for his disobedience, but he can’t - won’t - leave her to be raped. His father and Lola are likely on their way. He is signing his own death warrant by staying, but he’s dead without her anyway. 

Mary screams and claws at Plank’s arms as he jerks her towards his crotch. He’s crooning at her, horrible nasty words that make Abram feel nauseous again. It’s all the distraction he needs to pick up the pipe that felled his mother and he swings it with deadly accuracy and desperate strength into the side of Plank’s head. 

His skull gives like a rotted pumpkin dropped from a porch. Abram’s stomach lurches as bits of bone and gray brain matter come away with the pipe as he pulls it back, dropping it to the concrete floor with a clang. Plank collapses on top of Mary, who rolls him off of her and yanks her pants back up. 

Abram is staring at his hands. They are slick with sweat and dotted with droplets of blood that splattered when the pipe made contact with Jackson's skull. Absently, he touches one and it smears, the blood isn’t coming off, he’s just moving it around. “-Abram!” A sharp yank to his hair rips him out of his mind and back to the freezing warehouse and his mother who has gotten her jeans buttoned and is snarling in his face, still concussed but no less dangerous for it.

She shakes and shoves him until he meets her eyes. Her nails sink into his upper arm and they begin to run, footsteps and panting breaths echoing in the deserted space. The rusted metal door screeches hideously as they force it open and dart out into the parking lot. The sun has set, and the few streetlights that haven’t already burned out are flickering. It’s eerie and cold, in the fog that is drifting in from the sound, but it keeps them hidden as they duck around corners and through alleyways, moving away from the docks and into the city. 

Mary jerks him to a stop in front of an old gray Honda. Moving on autopilot, he picks the locks and slides into the front seat, reaching under the wheel to rip off the plastic casing and holding his hand out. Mary, already in the passenger seat, passes him a knife without a word. Abram slices and strips the correct wires with quick, practiced movements. His fingers shake, whether from cold, hunger or shock he’s not sure, but he twists the filaments together, ignoring the faint electrical sting of the live wires. The car sputters to life and he whips it away from the curb and through the dark streets.

“Are you hurt?” His mother demands, lips tight and white, eyes hard. “Or are you just stupid?” Abram instinctively flinches back at her tone, even though he knows that she won’t hurt him too badly, not while he’s driving. Crashing the car would only slow them down. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier to keep the car steady on the road as one of her hands snakes up to grip his hair in an unforgiving grip and the other one sinks into his side in a vicious pinch, her sharp fingernails drawing blood and not relenting even when tears drip from his eyes. 

She’s waiting for an apology and a promise he won’t do something so stupid again. But Abram isn’t in the habit of making promises he doesn’t intend to keep. He’s not sorry and if he ever has the chance to save his mother from rape again, he’ll take it, over and over again. Especially if all he’s risking is his own skin. And anyway, it worked out well for them. They took down one of his father’s lieutenants and escaped. So he sets his chin stubbornly and tries to keep his eyes focused on the road through the blur of his tears. 

“Fool!” His mother hisses eventually, after they have driven a few miles down the highway, southbound towards California. Her grip tightens and Abram can’t force down his whimper as more hot blood wells, but then she withdraws her hand and pulls her backpack onto her lap, digging through it with his blood still under her finger nails. 

Unable to resist, Neil clamps the half-moon shaped wounds with his left arm stretched over his torso. It doesn’t help, of course, but he has to do something, and his mother’s brand of love has never included anything but the coldest of comforts. And it’s been three nights since he’s eaten or slept, and bruises are already forming around the claw marks Mary has left in his side, and the heat in the car is broken and his teeth won’t stop chattering. 

“What’s your name?” Mary grits out, and he freezes, pinky finger flicking the turn indicator and changing lanes to buy himself a moment to think. ‘Alex’ is on the tip of his tongue, but Alex died when Plank found them. He wants to say ‘Abram’, but that name is only used for desperate times, and it is never a part of any of his identities. 

“Neil,” Mary prompts, harshly pinching him once more. 

Neil nods, suddenly settled in his skin. He knows who he is. “My name is Neil Josten, I just turned eighteen. I have black hair and brown eyes.” 

Mary rakes him with her eyes and he winces, because Alex had blond hair and green eyes, and won’t match Neil’s drivers license and passport. In Portland, Mary creeps into a CVS while Neil acquires a new car. They meet back at a gas station, where Mary pulls him into the bathroom and swiftly dyes their hair. Even with his eyes and scalp burning from the chemicals, he notices how gray her skin looks, she is sweating and panting and her fingers tremble as she exchanges her brown contacts for blue ones. 

Neil opens his mouth to ask if she’s okay, but before he can, she shoves a gas station sandwich into his hand and he is ravenous, so he eats it in four bites and then he’s back in the front seat, sucking down cheap, black coffee and speeding south while Mary sleeps in the passenger seat. 

He wakes her up at the first gas station he sees in California, a Chevron in some no-name town, where two interstates cross. He is ready to beg her to take over driving and let him sleep, but she’s feverish and muttering by the time he gets the car filled with gas. It’s after 2 in the morning, according to the blaring screens in the gas station. The sleepy attendant trades him coffee and Tylenol for a handful of crumpled dollars without looking up from his comic book. 

Neil drives around the corner, out of sight of anyone still awake to nudge his mother back to full wakefulness. He pours half a bottle of water and six pills down her throat. “Stuart!” she gasps, clutching at his forearm and smacking at his face until he meets her eyes. “Call Stuart! Promise me, Abram! You’ll call Stuart!”

Neil needs to get her somewhere she can sleep off whatever this is, maybe some medical supplies, even though she doesn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere. He wishes, fervently, for a doctor, but they’re required to report shit like this and thus are out of the question. Neil soothes his mother with promises that he has his binder and remembers how to use it until she subsides into a restless sleep. He can drive for a few more hours, maximum, but he’ll push as far as he can before she needs to take over or they need to find a place to stop. He clenches and unclenches his fists around the steering wheel, the cheap material coming apart under his fingers. Her fever will break by then, _it has to_.

He almost crashes the car just outside of Bodega Bay. Neil can’t make his eyes stay open. They are dry and itchy and gritty and they keep drifting shut. It's only an hour until San Francisco, if he speeds, but he’ll be pulled over long before that, even if he can keep the car on the road. “Mom,” he says, voice raspy from lack of use. He pulls the car into a beach parking lot just as the sun begins to rise. There are dunes obscuring the view of the ocean, so just to be safe he slowly eases the car into the sand and it crawls until it's tucked between two sandy hills, invisible from the road and from any surfers who are out this early. 

Mary doesn’t reply. “Mom?” he says again, reaching out to shake her. At first, he’s relieved how cold she feels, at least her fever has broken. But she’s stiff too, and she topples as he shakes her. “Mom!” He cries, shaking her harder. Part of his mind, the cold part, splits away, separates itself from the hysterical son trying to wake his mother. 

He is the butcher’s child, he knows what death looks like. 

Neil gives himself exactly two minutes to grieve and panic, and he uses every second of it. He cries and hits the wheel and begs her to wake up. He promises to be better, quieter, more obedient, if only she doesn’t _leave him alone._

She ignores him, because that is what dead bodies do. 

The two minutes pass; and Neil gets to work. First things first, he pulls his duffel and his mother’s backpack into his lap and opens them up. He discards all of her clothes right away, and pulls all but two of his own outfits out of the bag. He locates the paperwork for Neil Josten and sets them aside. It's a colossal waste of money, but the two other unused identities and all of his mother’s get thrown on top of the pile of discarded clothing. Neil moves the first aid supplies into his duffel with his binder, the few outfits he’s keeping and one burner phone. On an afterthought, he keeps the half-pack of his mother’s Lucky Strikes, too. He throws the duffel over his shoulder and pops open the lid to the gas tank. He has roughly half a tank left, it’s not ideal, but it will have to be enough. 

He shoves a tee shirt into the tank, and pulls it back out as gas gets siphoned up. The sodden fabric makes his eyes burn and tear, fumes going straight to his head, but he wrings it out over his mother's body, dousing her with gasoline and dumping the shirt over his body. He does it twice more with two more shirts, and then he flicks the lighter and fire catches the fourth, still wedged into the tank.

He sprints back around a dune, spare passports clutched in his hands. The car explodes with a muffled boom, fire growing quickly, licking greedy tongues into the interior, consuming his mother. To distract himself, and because it’s necessary, Neil digs a small hole in the sand and holds the lighter over his mother's passports until they are ash. He buries the ashes in the hole.

The smell of burning rubber and melting flesh follow him a few hundred feet down the beach where he digs another hole to melt the drivers licenses into. On a whim, he keeps his two identities and shoves a wad of the cash from his binder into a plastic bag with one of the unused burner phones. He looks around, he has never made a stash before, but leaving the identities where they can be recovered seems less of a waste than destroying them, so he jogs back to the deserted parking lot and searches for a suitable spot. 

There is a public restroom on one side of the lot and Neil ducks inside. Eyes scanning for a hiding spot. There’s nothing, so he washes the gasoline off his hands and trades his clothes for a fresh outfit. Birds are singing and black smoke is rising above the dunes when he reemerges. He will have to work quickly before some good samaritan sees and calls it in. Neil’s eye catches on one of the streetlights. It is set on a concrete pillar two feet high. There is a metal cover where the metal meets the concrete. He jerks it up and sure enough it lifts to reveal a tiny gap of space. With numb, aching fingers that still reek of gas over the cheap chemical scent of the industrial soap from the bathroom, he shoves the baggie as far into it as he can. It wedges nicely into the top back corner. Neil is pleased to see that it's invisible unless you know where to look. 

As it turns out he hides it just in time. He’s only twenty feet away from it when the first police car screams up to him. He turns to bolt, but he already knows it’s useless. It doesn’t matter how fast he is, he can’t outrun a police car, even if he could remember the last he had slept. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He is so stupid. 

He tries anyway. One police officer holds his hands out placatingly while the other creeps behind him. Neil sneers and runs the other direction. He can outrun the cops, but not the taser that digs into his back and jolts him into unconsciousness. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys, I've been blown away by the response to this fic, thank you to everyone who read it, hit that little heart button, or left a comment. you made me grin like a huge dumb-dumb, it was great.

Chapter 2

The first thing Neil knows is that he’s handcuffed. It's been years since he was too young to stop himself from reaching for the blades pressing into his skin, but there’s no mistaking the unyielding cold and heavy clinking of the chain. He’s also in a hospital gown, which is new. No one has ever put him in one of those before. 

The fog lifts and Neil’s eyes snap open. He’s in a nondescript room, long and oblong, lying in a small, scratchy bed in the middle of a row of small, scratchy beds. Only one, on the other side of the room, is occupied by a hulking teenager, who rocks and moans, bandage catching the blood seeping from his nose. 

For all of his injuries, Neil has never been to a hospital before. It’s possible he’s in one now, but he doesn’t think hospital units have bars on the windows and doors. Carefully, Neil tries to sit up, but he’s hampered by the cuffs, holding his hands close to the side of his bed. Also, the screaming agony that rages through his back and reaches around his chest and stomach like a hug from his mother. Distantly, he remembers that his mother is dead, and the warm pool of urine growing around him as the electricity twitched him to his back in that parking lot. 

The door at the end of the hall opens and a large, harried looking woman in a lab coat enters. Her steps are heavy as she approaches him, and Neil cringes away as far as he can, held in place by those sickening cuffs. Neil’s history tells a thousand stories of the horrors that can happen to a body held in place with handcuffs. 

The doctor doesn’t do any of them though. She barely even looks at him as she checks his vitals and lifts a plastic cup to his mouth. His body disobeys his brain and sucks the stale water down gratefully. “Where am I?” he gasps out, “what happened?” he strains after the water as she takes it away, but he can’t reach out for it himself. He hates being so dependent, but it’s all he’s ever been. 

“Oakland,” she says briskly, “a juvenile facility. Stay still, I need to treat your burns.” Her firm hands grasp his and unwind them, and the pain unspools. When had he burned his hands? On the car? Or when he put his hands on his mothers bones? He clenches his fists and the agony makes him choke as the few sips of water try and fight their way up his esophagus, but the relief at still having a grip is worth it. 

Neil is happy to subside to the infringing darkness as the doctor scolds him and smoothes cooling gel between his twitching fingers. “Am I under arrest?” he asks, when he finds his tongue. He blinks his eyes open when he gets no response, but the light has faded and he’s alone. Even the hulking boy from before has been removed from the corner. Maybe Neil imagined him. 

Alone in the twilight, Neil wonders how long it will take for Lola to find him. Over and over he watches her saunter over, in her heels, and dripping smile, cooing about how great the customer service here is, to leave him all tied up for him, like a present. Plans flit through his brain, pick the locks, find some clothing, he’s small and desperate, maybe he can fit through the bars if he’s willing to part with a few layers of skin. He has lock picks sown into the waistband of his jeans, and money in the lining of his jacket, but he’s in a hospital gown. Across the room there’s a disposal box for sharps, but it's fully encased in a hard plastic shell. His eyes find the drip of his IV, dripping something into his veins, syrupy and sweet, rocking him back to sleep. 

Two men are waiting for him when his eyes open again, sunlight crawling across the bed. They are old enough to mimic his father, in cheap suits, angry under a thin veneer of professionalism. The badges on their hips dry out Neil’s mouth faster than the IV can drip liquid into his thirsting veins. 

“Neil Josten,” one of them says and Neil’s eyelids click when he closes them in relief. They don’t know who he is. It's a stopgap, he knows, it won't save him, but he’ll take anything at this point. 

“Fuck you,” Neil says, because no one has ever accused him of being smart, and historically, the only way to shut his mouth has been with a slap. It’s effective, but it lacks staying power. “Am I under arrest?”

One of the feds raises his eyebrows, but continues as if Neil hadn’t spoken. “I’m Agent Browning and this is Agent Townes. We have a few questions about a burning car. There were signs of human remains in the front seat. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Neil sets his jaw. FBI involvement means that they know, or suspect who he is, or who his mother was. If she were still a Jane Doe, the local police would be talking at him, they wouldn’t have called in the feds. 

“Burning car?” Townes asks Browning, before turning to Neil, “what a coincidence! You have burned hands!”

Neil looks beyond them, trying to think of a way out of this mess. He could ask for a lawyer, but that would only create more of a paper trail and entangle him here ever further. He can’t speak to them either, and there’s nothing he can do while he’s restrained to a bed. His only chance is to outlast them, give them nothing until the trail runs cold and they are reassigned. Stay in juvie until he can slip away. All he can do is hope he can do that before his father catches up. 

“No, I don’t know, leave me alone.” Neil says, feigning boredom. 

“To which question?” Browning presses, leaning forward, as if he was finally getting somewhere. 

Neil shrugs. “Whichever one you want. Those are my answers. Oh, and fuck off.” 

They don’t. They threaten and weedle and offer deals. Townes goes red in the face, Browning can’t keep the smile on his face. Neil occupies himself by watching the sun slowly creep off his bed and onto the floor. Eventually it reaches the door, and climbs up the far wall. 

Finally, the doctor comes back with a meal on a plastic tray and no knife. “We have to keep you here until you cooperate,” Browning says as he unlocks one of Neil’s hands so he can eat. 

It’s pretty low on the list of threats Neil has received in his life so he grins around a bite of soggy grilled cheese. “How’s your overtime?” Browning’s mouth tightens, and Townes tugs him away. They talk to the doctor for a few minutes while Neil looks around for anything he can use to pick the locks with his new reach, but he finds nothing by the time the adults finish their conversation. 

“Enjoy juvie, kid.” Townes says, “you’ll be escorted to your cell in a few minutes. Maybe a few days will make you feel a bit more cooperative.”

“Real professional, Agent Townes,” Neil mocks. “Must take a real man to play hardball with a teenager, they teach a class on that at Quantico?” he takes another bite of his sandwich and tries to enjoy the feds discomfort and frustration, but it’s all he can do not to heave. He’s still alive, but he’s already dead. As long as he’s stuck here, he’s a sitting duck. Neil should shut up, Neil should lie, Neil should figure out what he needs to say to get into witsec so he can get out of juvie. He feels like a wolf, chewing off his own paw to get out of a trap, willing to die rather than stay put. 

Neil desperately misses his mother.

When Neil decides he can’t stomach anymore wonderbread and rubbery american cheese, he shoves the plate away and sips his water until the doctor comes back, this time escorted by a bored looking man in a brown uniform holding a gray bundle of clothing. The doctor pulls a screen around the bed and unlocks Neil’s other arm. “Get changed,” she orders, handing him the clothing, wrapped around a pair of ugly white sneakers.

Neil briefly considers picking up the food tray and bursting around the privacy screen swinging as he changes. But even if he managed to take out the doctor and the guard, there’s no way he’d make it out of the facility, especially not without knowing where he was going or where the doors were. No. That would only make them watch him closer. So instead, Neil meekly changes his clothes and keeps his head down as the guard herds him towards the doors. 

Keeping his head down allows Neil to closely examine the building as he passes through. The floors are linoleum, squeaky under his new shoes. Other boys, teenagers move around in clumps, escorted by other guards in brown uniforms. Some of them joke and laugh, almost like normal kids at school. Others have their own escorts. They pass a well stocked library, several classrooms and- Neil freezes. It's an exy court. Well, half of one at least, but it’s still the closest he’s been since- 

“Move along.” The guard orders gruffly, but Neil can’t tear his eyes away. There are six players on the court wearing mismatched gear, five lining up to take shots on the goal and a tiny looking goalie who smacks the balls away with undisguised strength, directly back at the strikers, hitting them with enough force that the balls have to be leaving bruises. An adult with a whistle yells something and the goalie shrugs and sits down in front of the goal, making himself comfortable. 

Neil is yanked away. He is still thinking about it when the guard closes the door behind him almost five minutes later. It’s not until the door locks behind him that Neil realizes he was so distracted by the tantalizing proximity to exy that he forgot to make a mental map of the facility. He knows the way from the hospital to the court, but he can’t remember a single thing between the court and this room. 

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid. _

He was in a small room. Thin gray carpet, tiny window with thick plastic instead of glass, a bunk bed shoved into one corner, desks in two others and a tiny alcove in the fourth that contained a stainless steel toilet, a shower head with no enclosure or curtain, a sink and a polished square of metal, a slightly subpar mirror. There are drawers stacked underneath the lower bunk and along the back of the beds, which are covered in a pile of haphazardly stacked books. 

Neil takes a breath, he lets it out. He is alone. He takes two steps into the room and freezes. Through the open doorway to the tiny bathroom he meets his fathers eyes. Cold and electric blue, sending unadulterated terror singing through his veins. The realization that all he has seen is his own reflection comforts him, but only slightly. With a soft moan, Neil sinks to his knees right there in the middle of the room. He digs his hands in his hair and  _ tugs _ pretending to be his mother. He tries to pull himself out of it because he needs to think, he needs to plan he needs to  _ runrunrun _ but there’s nowhere to go, he is in a locked box smaller than a motel room and there’s no way out and his eyes.  _ Where are his contacts? _ He hasn’t seen his eyes in years, they are too distinctive, too recognisable. 

He yanks on his hair harder and chokes on a sob,  _ why isn’t this working? _ His mother would yank and smack him and he’d be  _ fine _ back in the present, ready to run and fight and drive and stitch his broken body up so he could run more. Where is his mother?

Dead. She’s dead, and if she’s dead then Neil is too. Breathing, but a corpse anyway,  _ it's all over but the screaming _ . Because he stole his fathers eyes, and now there’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. All alone all _ alone all alone allaloneall- _

The door opens behind him, but Neil can do nothing but wait for the pain. It doesn’t come. “What the fuck.” A bland voice says. Neil freezes, as if that will somehow hide him from the intruder, but he’s not an ostrich so even he doesn’t believe it. Neil shakes, yanking harder on his hair as if he can conjure his mother to save him. Sweatpants appear in this line of sight, sweat drips into his eyes. Neil whimpers through teeth that ache from clenching so hard. 

The knees bend and hazel eyes meet his as the stranger crouches in front of him. Neil wraps his arms around his chest and shudders. “If you don’t breathe you’re going to pass out.” Neil latches on to the voice and the face, haloed in blond hair. He looks the way he sounds, bland and bored and that apathy is soothing to Neil. He has never been hurt by someone who just didn’t care. 

“Oh, for fucks sake-” the boy reaches out, slowly enough not to startle, to give Neil enough time to scramble away or smack it away and places his heavy hand on the back of Neil’s neck, firmly shoving his head down. 

And. 

And.

Neil can finally breathe. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmmm, I wonder who that could be?????
> 
> is it the one armed man?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kudos and comments! I am so glad that you all like reading it as much as I love writing it!

After two unbroken breaths, the other boy takes his hand away and disappears from Neil’s sight. When Neil is able, he lifts his head and straightens out his knees, following the stranger with his eyes. He is short and blond, and is wearing the same kind of sweats as Neil. He walks around the room like he owns it, so he is probably Neil’s room mate. 

“You’re staring,” the boy says flatly, not even bothering to look back at Neil. Neil closes his eyes and relaxes his muscles, one limb at a time. It doesn’t come naturally to lower his guard around anyone, but if the boy was going to hurt him he could have done it by now. 

“Thank you,” Neil says, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his head on his arms. The exhaustion hits him, it’s been less than a week since he and his mother left Quebec for a quick stop in Seattle. Now he is all alone and stuck like a rat in a glue trap; he can tear himself apart to escape, but he’ll still die. Neil can still feel the warmth of the other boy's hand on the back of his neck. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him and didn’t leave a bruise. 

His roommate flips him off. Neil shrugs and heads to the shower. As he mechanically pulls off his clothes, he stares at the dingy tile and counts as high as he can in French. His eyes keep jerking towards the mirror, but he keeps them firmly averted. Avoiding his fathers eyes won’t give him access to colored contacts or hair dye, but it’ll stop him from dissolving into another panic attack so he closes his eyes and focuses on scrubbing the hospital stench from his skin. 

The water soaks the bandages on his hands, making them clumsy and useless. With his teeth, he unwinds the cotton and lets it fall to the floor with a wet plop. The water feels scalding on Neil’s burned hands, and running the cheap shampoo into his hair is agony. Neil grits his teeth and blinks back the tears, needing to rid himself of the lingering stench of his mothers corpse that still clings to his skin and hair. 

Neil is panting with pain and his hands are seeping by the time he turns the water off and steps back into his clothes. He is twitchy and nervous without his duffle. If he thinks too much about it in the FBI’s hands he’s going to go mad, so he clenches his hands to distract himself and leaves the bathroom.

His room mate has moved from the desk to the top bunk where he’s leaning against the wall, book open on his lap, crooked glasses slipping down his nose. It’s an oddly peaceful tableaux and Neil blinks when he realizes that his hands have relaxed, easing the fiery agony that’s been eating through them. “If you ever touch me, I will kill you,” the boy says, giving zero indication that he’s even noticed Neil’s presence. 

Neil shrugs, nearly everyone he’s ever known has tried to kill him, and few have ever detailed whatever arbitrary reasoning they have. Besides, he can’t think of any reason he would ever want to touch the other boy, so it's an easy enough boundary to accept. 

“I’m Neil,” he says, more to remind himself that he’s real and alive and currently out of his father’s reach than anything else, but he still likes the taste of it in his mouth. He sits down gingerly on the lower bunk. He can’t remember the last time he’s slept in a bed that he didn’t share with his mother, and he hates the idea of being vulnerable with someone else locked in a room with him, but. But his options are limited and it’s easier to fly under the radar if he is unremarkable and causes no problems. 

“I don’t care,” the roommate replies, then, grudgingly, “Andrew.” Neil opens his mouth, but before he can respond, the lights suddenly click off, plunging the room into perfect darkness. 

Neil tenses to run, senses on high alert,  _ they’ve found him- he has to runrunRUN- _ there’s nowhere to go, he has no weapons. He stumbles until his back finds a wall, he makes himself small against it, baring his teeth in useless defiance. 

A quiet snort breaks his panic-driven reverie. The roommate, Andrew, tosses his book in the general direction of his dresser and rustles in the cheap sheets. “Lights out,” he says, “you’re all kinds of fucked up aren’t you?”

“Fuck you,” Neil hisses when he can breathe, clumsily stumbling his way to his bunk. The sheets are itchy and stiff, but Neil has slept in sewer drains with open wounds before, so he doesn’t really mind. 

He thinks it’ll take him hours to sleep, tense and pressed against the wall, so unlike his mother’s fierce hold, making him fear nothing but her. He’s asleep in moments. 

_ ‘Abram!’ his mother says, voice choked and gasping, ‘help me!’ Neil drops to his knees in the damp sand, gagging on the choking black smoke. Her voice came from under the sand, she is suffocating! Neil sinks his hands into the burning sands, digging frantically, desperate to reach her.  _

_ She calls out again, voice growing fainter, more garbled as chunks of wet sand slip down her throat and cake her lungs. Finally, Neil’s desperate fingers scrabble against damp canvas and he frantically shoves the sand away from his bag. He opens the zipper and screams.  _

_ His mothers skull grins up at him, fire where her eyes should be, and lifts a clacking, skeletal hand around his collar. He tries to grip her wrist bone, but it's so hot his flesh begins to sizzle and spit. He screams again, this time in pain and she yanks him forward. He topples into the hole, unable to free himself as she pulls him down, down, down to where his father is waiting with sharpened knives… _

Something hits Neil in the face. He shoots upright, clawing the sand from his eyes, gasping to clear his airways. He stares around frantically, heart galloping, sweat sticking his shirt to his back. “Give it back,” Andrew’s voice is hard and flat, utterly without emotion. Neil blinks, noticing the pillow on the floor, which is what Andrew must have hit him with. The contrast between his own panic and Andrew’s boredom is soothing, grounding him in the here and now.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Neil says dumbly, tossing the pillow back up to his roommate. His own pillow and sheets are drenched with sweat. Neil winces and gets out of the bed. 

Andrew humphs and pulls the pillow under his head. He is curled up on his bed with his back to the wall watching as Neil begins to pace. He wants to run, to have his feet hit the pavement and feel air tearing through his lungs. He wants to pretend that he has some control over his life. But Neil is locked in a tiny room with no way out. 

So instead of running, he paces. Back and forth, back and forth. Seven steps from the desk to the door, seven steps from the door to the desk.  _ One two three four five six seven. _ Andrew is watching him, golden eyes catching the faint lights from the window in the door.  _ One two three four five six seven.  _

_ Onetwothreefourfivesixseven. _ Over and over and over again until light begins to seep into the room from the cloudy window. All night Neil has been thinking about running, how he can get out and he has no ideas. He has no phone, no money, no hair dye or contacts. He already lost his contacts. He has two weeks at most before his roots begin to show, probably less. 

At some point, the lights in the room flick on with a hum and Andrew stumbles out of bed, glaring at Neil as he walks around him into the bathroom. The toilet flushes. The shower turns on. Neil keeps pacing. 

“They’ll drug you if they see you like that,” Andrew says at some point. He is dressed and sitting on the desk, book in hand. As usual, he looks utterly bored. 

Neil’s steps stutter. The idea is horrifying. He is easy to catch as he is, but drugged? When he could say anything? When anything could happen to him?

No. no, no,  _ no. _

Neil stumbles to a stop. “Drug me?” he asks. Andrew shoves a nondescript backpack into his arms.

Before Andrew can answer, the door to the cell opens and he strolls out into the hallway, joining the throng of other boys. With nothing else to do Neil hurries after him. He is easy to follow. Despite how crowded the halls are, Andrew has a bubble around him no one else seems willing to penetrate. Neil, overwhelmed by the bumping and jostling, slips next to Andrew with a sigh. Andrew stares at him. “What do you think you are doing?” he asks. 

“Breakfast, right?” Neil asks as the hall empties into a cafeteria. “I have no intention of touching you and that’s all you told me not to do, so,” he shrugs and grabs a tray, lining up to be served breakfast. 

Andrew pauses and stares at him for a second. Neil stares back until the serving lady calls him forward. Breakfast, as it turns out, consists of powdered eggs, fried french toast sticks with a container of syrup and a mealy apple. It’s not the most appealing meal Neil has ever had, but for the last five years he has eaten mostly canned and fast food, so he has no complaints. 

Neil waits until Andrew gets his food and trots along behind him until he sits down at one of the tables by the wall. The rest of the tables are rowdy and loud, but no one attempts to join them. Andrew immediately tears open his syrup and attacks the french toast sticks, shoving everything else aside and pulling his book out of his backpack. 

Neil has many questions for Andrew, but he contents himself by shoving over his own french toast and syrup and snagging Andrew’s untouched orange in exchange. Once again, Andrew looks up at him with an unreadable expression but he doesn’t stop him.

“Problem?” He asks, a bit of a smirk growing across his face. 

“I think you might be,” Andrew replies cryptically. “Shut up now.”

Neil bites into his apple and obeys, eyes slipping from Andrew to look around the room. He can feel people looking at them, some curiously, most aggressive. It makes Neil’s skin itch to be observed and he thinks it may have been a mistake to latch onto Andrew, but he can’t quite bring himself to regret it. He can still feel the solid weight of Andrew’s hand on the back of his neck, grounding him. 

It's clear that Andrew is feared and avoided, but he seems to tolerate Neil well enough, as long as he respects his boundaries and mostly shuts up. Neil’s silence has always been beaten into him, but he hopes he can manage to keep it without the painful reminder. 

Another bell rings, sparking a flurry of motion as the boys gather up their food trays and bags and hurry for the doors. Neil gets up and follows Andrew to the trash can and puts his plastic tray on top of the stack of identical trays. They exit the cafeteria and the boys separate themselves into several distinct groups going in different directions. 

“No,” Andrew says as Neil follows him to a classroom. Neil freezes immediately, the word stopping him cold. It is the first time he’s heard Andrew say it, and it is so abrupt and absolute he couldn’t stop himself from listening even if he wanted to. Andrew watches him with a tilted head, expression unreadable. Then he lifts his hand and points at another open door across the rapidly empty hall. 

“What?” Neil asks, frowning as he looks at the other room. “How do you know that’s where I go?”

Andrew glares at him and turns around without another word and vanishes into his classroom. Neil debates following him for a moment, but. But Andrew hasn’t hurt Neil yet. Andrew said ‘no’ and told him to go somewhere else. Neil goes. 

He’s the last one in the room and the boys whisper and stare as he enters. Neil shrinks his shoulders and angles his head down, so no one can get a clear image of his face. He finds a desk in the back corner, closest to the door, and gratefully slides into it. He hopes the teacher will start class and everyone will be forced to stop paying attention to him, but he’s not so lucky. The teacher ignores everyone in favor of reading his book, presumably assuming the students will get busy reading the chapter and answering the questions written on the dirty and scraped whiteboard behind him. 

As one, three boys scoot their desks until they crowd around Neil. Neil ignores them, but tightens his hands into fists. He’s not afraid of bullies or getting hit, it's just that he only knows how to kill and run, he has never won a fight. After all, he’s always been better at starting them. But Neil Josten is quiet and invisible and doesn’t cause trouble, Neil Josten shouldn’t be getting into fights at all, so he shuts his mouth and pulls out the outdated textbook from under his desk and pointedly opens it to the correct chapter. 

“You ignoring us, man?” the one in the middle says, leaning forward aggressively. He’s as short as Neil is, with a rat face and watery eyes that are too close together. “Think you’re better than us or something?”

Neil doesn’t reply. If he opens his mouth now, things will definitely escalate and he’ll get punched. It’s not the punch he’s afraid of, it's the report that would probably be made. Every time anyone opens his file they could realize it’s all fake. Neil didn’t have time to create an identity before he was arrested. All he has is an ID. No phone number, or social media accounts, no transcripts or even a house. It’s only a matter of time until someone has more questions. 

The FBI is already sniffing around. 

“Careful Duane,” another boy calls, “that’s the kid the Monster let sit with him.” 

Ratface’s friends look at each other uneasily, sitting up a bit straighter and leaning away from Neil. Ratface blinks at him, “Is that right? You sucking his dick or something?”

Neil ignores him and focuses on the other kid. “Monster? Do you mean Andrew?”

“Doe? I guess so, but no one calls him that. You know he’s nuts right?”

Neil frowns, nothing about Andrew had seemed crazy to him. Dangerous, yes, with strict personal boundaries and very little patience for bullshit or other people. But he wasn’t unhinged. “I heard he burned his house down,” Ratface says, apparently deciding that gossiping was better than trying to bully a boy who ignored him. 

“I heard he killed his own mother.”

“He’s a foster kid, Randy, he doesn’t even  _ have _ a mother. I heard it was a stranger, he just snapped and beat him to death.”

“I heard he was laughing hysterically when they brought him in.”

“Bullshit! Have you ever even seen him smile? No way he laughed.”

The teacher raps his knuckles on his and barks at them to settle down. He doesn’t even look up. “He broke three hands and a nose his first week here,” one of Ratface’s friends says. 

The other one nods, “That’s why he plays goalie, cuz he’ll kill someone if they let him loose on the court.”

“Exy?” Neil asks, sudden excitement burning through him. He remembers the goalie he’d seen the day before, all boredom and spite and sheer, burning talent. Had that been Andrew? It could have been, he realizes.  _ Could Andrew get him on the court? _

“The cop who arrested him insisted he get placed in the Enrichment Program.” Ratface’s friend says, bitter. 

The bell rings before Neil can ask anything else. He’s the first one out of the door. He’s sure that there’s another class he’s supposed to go to, and wandering around alone will probably get him in trouble he’d really rather avoid. But he can’t help it. 

It takes him almost fifteen minutes to find his way back to the Exy court and he arrives just in time to see the small team stomp in from the door on the other side of the court than the window he’s all but pressed against. Neil’s eyes find the goalie instantly, and this time, he recognizes him. It is Andrew. His eyes seem to find Neil silhouetted in the glass, but they slide away immediately, ignoring him completely. Neil doesn’t mind, he’s too busy trying to figure out if he can convince Andrew to help him play, and whether it's worth the risk of a painful death. 

His mother would murder him, because it only takes him about thirty seconds to decide that yes, it is. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Next update should be 12/20


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who left kudos or a comment! you all make me so happy! 
> 
> cw: nothing I think???????
> 
> super short chapter today, but I couldn't get it to mesh with the last chapter or the next chapter so here it is, on its own.
> 
> hope you like it!!!

“Spit it out,” Andrew orders around a large mouthful of clumpy instant mashed potatoes. Neil looks up from the rubbery chicken he is poking at with his fork.

“What?” 

They are at dinner. The food is just as cheap and tasteless and everyone is still staring at them. Andrew ignores them all with admirable proficiency, but the eyes on Neil make him feel twitchy. 

“Exactly,” Andrew replies. It’s another one of the confusing statements he seems so fond of making. But Neil has never had a friend before, so maybe this is normal. He wants to ask Andrew about Exy and the team, but he won’t do it with so many people watching and listening to them. 

Neil passes Andrew his Jell-O to distract him. Andrew accepts with a hum and goes back to ignoring him. Neil doesn’t mind, it lets him close his eyes and hide how tired he is. 

Neil keeps his eyes slitted and focuses on Andrew’s cheap sneakers when dinner ends and they are escorted back to their room. His fingers twitch to rub his eyes, so he distracts himself from his distraction by asking the questions he spent all dinner biting back. 

“Exy,” he says, the moment the heavy door slams behind them. Even talking about the forbidden topic is enough to make excitement curl through him. As soon as he tastes the word he has to fight back a flinch as his body expects his mother’s punishment, but it never comes.  _ Never again _

“Bless you,” Andrew deadpans, walking over to his desk and pulling himself up on top of it to read. 

Neil shuffles his feet impatiently. “I know you play. I saw you yesterday and I know you saw me today.” 

“Stalker,” Andrew accuses, bending his book back around it’s binding and squinting at the words as if he can’t quite see them. 

“Andrew,” Neil says, creeping closer, but he's as careful as ever to stay out of arm's reach. He doesn’t understand, Andrew is  _ good. _ Untutored and rough, but so full of raw power and talent that Neil doesn’t know how he isn’t talking about it. “You’re good!”

“And you're annoying me. Shut up or I’ll make you.” Andrew still doesn’t look up, but his fist tightens around his book in warning. Neil subsides, barely. He paces around the room, picks up his pillow and puts it back down, investigates Andrew’s bookshelf through his aching eyes and goes back to pacing. Several times, Neil opens his mouth to say something, to bring Exy back up, but he remembers those knuckles going white, the warning in Andrew’s tone. Neil hasn’t been hit in a week and he doesn’t want Andrew to be the one to ruin that streak. It's unprecedented, after all.

He’s bending down to tie and retie his shoes when Andrew drops his book abruptly, the unexpected thunk immediately drawing Neil’s attention. “It’s a stupid sport and I hate it, why do you care?”

Neil gapes at him uncomprehendingly. “How can you hate exy? It’s speed and power and instinct and- god, Andrew, you’re  _ really  _ good! You could play in college, I mean it! I don’t believe you, you can’t actually hate it.”

Andrew snorts. “Right, Edgar Allen is recruiting from juvie-” Neil flinches back a few inches. He catches himself immediately, but Andrew’s eyes have narrowed in consideration. “For such an exy junkie that’s an interesting reaction to the best college team. Too many Hitchcock films perhaps?”

“What?” Neil asks absently, he tries to focus on the conversation, but Andrew’s lost him and his mind is too full of memories of Edgar Allen to stay fully present. His joy and excitement of playing against Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day had turned into the resigned horror and muted terror of watching his father skin a man alive while his new friends puked in the corner. It had been that very night that his mother had woken him up and shoved him in an unfamiliar car, never to return. 

“Keeping secrets,  _ Neil Josten?” _ Andrew asks, head tilted, looking far too interested for Neil to be safe. 

“Can you get me on the court?” Neil asks, half to distract his roommate and half because he can’t keep the words contained for even a moment longer. 

“Can you tell me the truth?” Andrew replies immediately. 

“What?” Neil asks dumbly, he’s not used to people actually calling him out on his lies, as often as he tells them. He’s a good liar and he and his mom usually leave before anyone can get suspicious, let alone confront him about it. Words stick in his throat. Neil doesn’t actually like telling lies. He doesn’t know how to do anything else, and they keep him safe, but all Neil has ever wanted to be is _real_. 

“Are you stupid?” Andrew says, “are you brain damaged? No? Listen to me. Tell me the truth and I will get you on the court.”

Neil swallows, his throat sticking uncomfortably. He feels trapped. He can’t move, he can’t breathe, he can’t say no. 

He can’t say yes either.  _ He can’t. _ He’s going to.

“What?” he says again. 

Andrew rolls his eyes and looks imperiously at the book, still slumped on the floor. Without thinking about why, Neil picks it up and tosses it on the desk next to Andrew. Andrew doesn't flinch or react, he picks it up like nothing happened and goes back to pointedly ignoring Neil. “The offer stands until I get bored of you. I’d think quickly if I were you, I’m not known for my attention span.”

Neil ignores Andrew right back. He wants to go on a run, but he can’t so he paces. He closes his eyes and walks between the stone walls over and over and over and  _ over. _

What would it be like, he wonders, to be able to trust someone enough to open up and share his burden without worrying they’d hurt him or leave?  _ Like freedom _ he thinks, like exy and a future. Neil is so, _so_ lonely. 

Andrew’s going to ask questions when his hair starts growing in. He’s already caught, he’s already dead. Sure, Andrew could tell on him and get him murdered faster, but isn’t that worth even a few hours back on an exy court? He’s going to die, but maybe he could feel like he’s living, if only for a few days or weeks. 

_ Sorry mum. _

Andrew looks up and blinks in surprise the moment Neil approaches him. “Come here,” he orders. Numbly, Neil obeys. Andrew slowly reaches out and grasps Neil’s chin, pulling him down so he can examine his eyes. Neil counts to ten in French and then German, focusing on the warm strength of Andrew’s hand.   
_  
“I’ll do it,” Neil says.  
_  
“Is this what honesty looks like on you, Rabbit?”

“I have no idea,” Neil admits, “I haven’t been this honest in years.” 

“Hmmm,” Andrew releases Neil and Neil steps away, not wanting to crowd the other boy. 

“My truth could get you killed,” Neil warns, picking at his hemline. He feels like he’s suffocating in this tiny room he's stuck in. He misses the sky, he misses fresh air, he misses the ache in his lungs as he runs. “I’m serious, Andrew. You get me on the court and I’ll tell you whatever I can, but it really will put you in the crosshairs of some very dangerous people.”

Andrew almost looks amused, but Neil isn’t joking. “I can take care of myself,” he says dismissively. “And you, if you do what I say.”

Neil gapes at him. The idea of anyone, let alone a teenage boy, standing up to The Butcher or any of his men is laughable. Neil’s killed a few, yes, but only because they were distracted and he was underestimated and got very, very lucky. Andrew is nothing but a mosquito waiting to be swatted. 

And yet, Neil isn’t laughing. Looking at Andrew, calm and solid and warm, he remembers what he saw on the exy court. Andrew was an unmovable wall, stopping every single ball the strikers sent rocketing towards him, unruffled as he protected the goal. At least when he could be bothered. There’s something about him that makes even such a ridiculous statement plausible, even believable. 

It's impossible, but all Neil can do is look at Andrew and think  _ he could shoulder all of my problems and never break a sweat. _ And if he can’t, well. Neil’s dead anyway. If Andrew wants to attempt to protect him, Neil can accept that in exchange for exy. Andrew wouldn’t be the first person he’s left to die. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Neil says with a shrug. 

“I will get you on the exy court and keep you safe, and you will always tell me the truth. Do you promise?” Andrew’s eyes are as steady as they usually were, but Neil notices that he’s holding his breath. This is important to Andrew, Neil realizes, promises mean something to him. Neil will have to remember that. He can’t break this one without breaking the fragile trust they are building. With faint surprise, Neil realizes he doesn’t want to do that. 

“Yes,” he says, meeting Andrew’s eyes, for once able to suppress his shudder at  _ being seen _ . “I promise.” 

“I will hold you to it,” Andrew swears, a hint of a threat darkening his gaze. 

“I believe you. I won’t hold you to your promise to protect me though, not from the people who are hunting me. They’ll kill me even if they have to kill you first, so it's not worth it,” Neil shrugs. 

“It’s a promise Neil. You focus on keeping your word to me and let me worry about the rest. We have about two more minutes before the lights turn off, so now’s the time to take a piss if you need to.” Andrew doesn’t bother to see if Neil takes his advice. He slides off the top of the desk and climbs up into his bunk. “If you wake me up by screaming again, I’ll drown you in the toilet,” he yawns, wrapping himself in the thin blankets and pressing his back into the cold wall. 

  
Neil almost laughs, but the lights click off before he can, plunging the room into darkness, broken only by the square of fluorescent light through the window in the door, allowing the night guards to check on them periodically all night. The very thought makes Neil’s skin crawl, so he curls up on the lower bunk and pulls his sheets over his head. The whole bed shakes as Andrew shifts and Neil wonders if Lola will make him watch her skin his new friend alive.  _ Is exy worth that? _ Neil thinks, and then unexpectedly,  _ no.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! let me know what you think!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to everyone who left kudos or a comment on this fic, I love you all! I know its been a minute, but I'm back!

Neil grits his teeth against the rising panic and yanks on his hair, leaning towards the mirror for a closer look. Auburn glares back at him. Not for the first time, Neil is grateful that he and his mom had stopped in Portland and dyed over his last identities blonde hair. Red under dark hair is bad enough, but it would be even more noticeable if he had bleached it. 

“Bald would not be a good look on you,” Andrew says, batting Neil’s hands away from his head with a few well aimed slaps. Neil glares at his room mate but he stops tearing at his hair. 

“Bald would be better than this,” he mutters, gesturing vaguely at his head. He focuses on Andrew’s face in the mirror so he can avoid meeting his own eyes. _His fathers eye_ s. As soon as his hair grows out enough for other people to notice, he’s dead. 

Andrew reaches out and yanks on Neil’s hair, not hard enough to hurt, but certainly enough to get his attention. “What?” Neil snaps with a scowl.

“You tell me,” Andrew says, tugging again to make his point. 

_ Honesty for Exy _ , that was the deal. “I look like my father,” Neil admits, voice low even though they’re alone in the room. “That’s why I had the contacts and dyed my hair. When it grows in I- I’ll look like him and people will come to kill me before the FBI figures it out.” He looks up at Andrew hopelessly. If Andrew asks more questions, he’ll answer them, but he doesn’t have it in him to explain yet, not with the memories so close to the surface, triggered by his reflection. 

“No,” Andrew says, releasing his grip on Neil’s hair and pushing him lightly away from him.

“What,” Neil manages dumbly. 

“No,” Andrew repeats. “Now get out of my sight.”

There aren’t many places Neil can go in their tiny room that are out of Andrew’s sight line, but he wordlessly steps around him and out of the bathroom. He curls up on his bed with his back to Andrew to give him as much privacy as he can before they have to go to breakfast. 

\--

As usual, Andrew herds Neil through the breakfast line and over to the table in the corner. They aren’t watched so much anymore. For all that people seem to fear Andrew, it only takes a few new arrivals for people to lose interest in Neil. With his appearance changing already, fading in the background is an earth shattering relief. 

Neil bites his soggy toast and lets his eyes flick around the room. The cracked grey linoleum looks sickly yellow under the fluorescent lights and squeaks under the plastic sandals all the boys wear. If the benches and tables weren’t nailed down, they would scream against it every time a thoughtless teenager sat down. The air smells like powdered eggs, cheap maple syrup and, faintly, of spoiled milk. Neil’s been here long enough that he doesn’t really even notice anymore. 

He does notice when Andrew’s attention shifts. They don’t talk much at meal times, Andrew reads and Neil puts his back to the wall and watches the door. Occasionally, Andrew will look at him with disconcerting focus, but then he’ll steal something off of Neil’s plate and go back to ignoring him. Andrew looks up, but this time his eyes don’t fasten on Neil. Neil follows his eyes across the room and frowns in confusion. Andrew is looking at one of the new arrivals, and the boy is looking back. Neil can’t see anything special about him, but Andrew quirks an eyebrow and tilts his head towards the door. The boy grins toothily and stands up. 

“Stay,” Andrew doesn’t even look at Neil when he speaks. Neil opens his mouth, but Andrew is already following the boy out the door. 

Neil is used to following orders, it's been beaten into him since before he was old enough to understand the rules he was hit for breaking. He stays. 

Neither of them return before the electronic bell summons Neil to class. There is no one left alive that Neil should feel anything for, so it takes him almost his whole history class to realize that he is  _ worried. _ It’s stupid and pointless because everyone here fears Andrew, for reasons Neil still isn’t totally sure about, and the boy with the blondish hair isn’t exactly  _ intimidating.  _

_ Andrew didn’t even look at him… _

Neil spots a flicker of blond hair between gray-clad shoulders on his way to math and that helps, a bit. That Andrew is waiting for him at their table for lunch helps even more. “That’s not real tuna,” Andrew says without looking up from tearing his peanut butter and jelly sandwich to shreds.

Neil shrugs, chest loosening,  _ Andrew is fine. _ “I’ve had worse.” He takes a large bite of his sandwich and snags Andrew’s bruised apple, tossing over his bag of chips in exchange. Andrew hums and catches the bag, crushing it between his hands until it pops and rains potato slivers into a pile next to the pieces of his sandwich. 

Neil waits for Andrew to explain what happened at breakfast, then shakes his head and tries to forget about it. Neil promised Andrew the truth, not the other way around. If Andrew is still able to get Neil on the Exy court, he doesn’t owe Neil anything else. 

Neil wolfs down the rest of his sandwich in two bites, as if eating quickly will speed up the half hour they are allowed to eat before the afternoon starts. Afternoons at the Oakland Rehabilitation Center for Boys are spent in group therapy and other activities. Up until today, Neil found himself staring bemusedly at an easel or lump of cold clay in art before flatly ignoring everyone during group therapy. Today, Andrew has promised to get Neil on the Exy team. Neil can’t stop his leg from bouncing, no matter how viciously Andrew glares at it. 

Finally,  _ finally,  _ the bell sounds and the doors open and Andrew pushes back from the table with a put-upon sigh. Neil bounces along next to him, biting his tongue to stop himself from asking all the questions he wants to.

Neil inhales deeply as he steps onto the court. Thousands of miles and five years and the court still smells the same, sweat and plexiglass and  _ home _ . It sounds the same too, when the door clicks shut; echoing and enclosed, a bubble of safety that protects even Neil.

“Doe,” the middle-aged man says guardedly when Neil follows Andrew onto the court to stand in front of him. Neil carefully measures the length of his arms and takes a tiny step back. Andrew doesn’t even blink as he shifts in front of Neil protectively, but Neil does. 

“Look at me,” Andrew says tonelessly, “replacing what I broke like a responsible young adult.” He gestures back at Neil. 

The coach looks at Neil over Andrew’s head but he speaks to Andrew. “You shot the ball right at Thompson’s ankle.”

Andrew shrugs, a ripple of muscled shoulders under gray material. “It’s not my fault his reflexes are shit.”

The coach looks pained. “Can you play, kid?” he asks Neil. 

Neil could tell him that he played well enough to earn a tryout at Evermore, that he clocks a four minute mile, that all he wants in the world is to play. Instead he just nods, unable to force his lies around the excited catch in his throat. His hands itch for a racquet. Behind them, the door of the court clicks open and a group of boys walk in. Their voices echo and shoes squeak across the smooth floor. 

“I’m Coach Anderson,” the man says, thrusting out a hand. He doesn’t look offended when Neil and Andrew just stare at it. He lowers it quickly. “Josten, right? Doe will take you to find a kit that fits.”

Andrew tilts his head at the order. “Oh, coach, isn’t that a job for Dulles?” It sounds like a question, but it isn’t, not really. Andrew walks away, towards the locker room, leaving Neil to stand awkwardly and stare at his back. 

Anderson glares at Andrew with enough anger that Neil steps further out of range. He doesn’t notice. “Jake!” The coach calls, and one of the boys detaches from the group and saunters over. “Take Josten to get suited up, he’ll be taking Thompson’s place today.”

“Sure, coach,” Dulles says, but the smile on his face doesn’t reach his eyes when he looks over at Neil. One look and he dismisses Neil as useless.  _ It's better than being memorable,  _ Neil muses, but there’s cruelty in Dulles eyes, enough to make Neil wary. 

Dulles waits until the coach steps away to turn on Neil. “I like Thompson, you little fucker.” he breathes, his mouth smells sour and his eyes are narrow and vicious as he leans close to Neil. “He’ll be back in six weeks and you’ll be gone, do you understand?”

“Thompson must not be very good,” Neil snaps back, already bracing for the punch he knows is coming, “If you’re already this threatened by me.”

Dulles’ fingers tighten into fists, but he forces a smile when the coach looks over at them. He grips Neil’s arm hard enough that Neil can feel bruises forming and yanks him to the side of the court. Neil lets himself be shoved into the locker room and stands quietly as Dulles piles mismatched gear at his feet. Neil doesn’t need friends, he needs Exy, and a few bruises are a far cheaper price than what he’s willing to pay. 

The locker room is small and lacks ventilation, the air is unpleasantly still and damp and smells of mold and stale body odor. Lockers slam behind him as boys change out and flick towels at each other. A few people call out foul suggestions, and even though he looks, Neil doesn’t spot Andrew.

“This-” Dulles says, shoving dented shoulderguards into Neil’s chest hard enough to make him stumble two steps backwards, “won’t protect you. Accidents happen all the time on a court.”

Neil tilts his head to the side, “Like what happened to Thompson?” he asks innocently, but his tongue trips over the words with silky viciousness, a lesson he learned from Lola. The rest of the boys go quiet, watching Dulles lean over Neil with predatory intent. Some of these boys are violent, all of them are bigger and stronger than Neil is. They have little power here, except what they can steal from each other and Neil is small and mouthy and infuriatingly unafraid of them. They want to break him, Neil can see it, and he doesn’t have the self control to shut up and make him small enough to not be a target. 

Dulles’ fist catches Neil just below the sternum with enough force to lift him onto his toes as his breath is expelled from his lungs with a pained huff. Neil collapses on the floor, forcing his heart to calm until his lungs find enough air to sustain him. He allows a scornful grin to creep over his face “my mother hits harder than you do,” he confides, laughing. 

A few boys behind him chuckle, and just like that, the energy in the room changes enough that Dulles goes faintly red, but he doesn’t dare retaliate. Neil has made him look weak, even from the ground and he can’t be sure how the rest of the boys will take another hit to Neil. 

Neil pulls his scattered gear closer to him and allows himself five deep inhales before he figures out how to change out without flashing his scars. There is no privacy in this room, the showers unpartitioned and even the toilets divided by thin plastic walls, but not doors. Neil’s patchwork skin would signal prey to these boys, not survival, and he can’t risk further injury before he even steps on the court. 

It takes some wrangling, but he manages to change the way a surfer would on a crowded beach. It is strange behavior, and would no doubt draw attention Neil can’t afford, but no one is paying Neil any attention now that the show is over. Neil tugs his cheap blue pinnie over his pads and picks up his racquet. It's cheap and old, but it whistles through the air like a dream when he spins it. It's been years since he’s held one, but it fits in his hand like he was born with it. 

Andrew is sitting in front of the goal when Neil steps back on the court, red pinnie crumpled in his waistband. Neil trots over to stretch out. Andrew spares him a glance, but his eyes drift over to the jostling clump of players on the other side. “Making friends?” Andrew asks idly. 

“What do you think?” Neil replies, helpless against his grin as Anderson blows his whistle, summoning the team to circle around him. 

“That you are more trouble than you’re worth. Go now,” Andrew says, sending Neil towards the huddle. Andrew doesn’t even get up, just stares off into the distance. 

Thompson, it turns out, was a striker, so Neil is too. Neil was a backliner in little leagues, so his skills are not suited for offense, but he doesn’t care. They could have put him in the goal and we would say thank you. Dulles is a backliner, and grins threateningly at Neil. 

There’s only half a court, so scrimmages are stunted and unsatisfying. Neil has trouble keeping the ball in his racquet as he runs, but he is quick and spiteful enough to take personal pleasure each time he slips past Dulles’ increasingly illegal body checks to fire on Andrew. 

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter that the defense can’t stop Neil, because Andrew does, effortlessly. He doesn’t even have to move his feet to block each shot Neil or the other strikers fire at him. 

It’s frustrating and exhilarating and the two hours pass far too quickly. Andrew is off the court before the coaches final whistle stops echoing against the plexiglass, but Neil lingers. Partly because Neil needs privacy to shower and partly because he can’t yet bring himself to leave the court yet. Two hours, three days a week and occasional outings are not enough for him, even though they should be. Today was far more than Neil deserves.  _ I’m so sorry, mom.  _

And besides, Dulles is probably waiting in the shower to get back at Neil for being faster and cleverer than he was expecting. When he’s not being goaded, Neil is actually quite good at avoiding trouble. He still feels the imprint of Dulles’ fist every time he breathes. 

The locker room is empty when he finally enters, but the air is heavy with moisture from the showers, and water drips loudly down the drains. Neil slips on the wet linoleum, colored of old piss, and steadies himself with one hand on the row of lockers. He grabs his sweats and ducks into the showers. He strips and washes his body as quickly as he can manage. The guards will be looking for him soon, when they realize he hasn’t shown up to group therapy, and he doesn’t want to be caught like this. 

He turns off the water and runs an old towel quickly over his body and hair. His sweats stick to his damp skin as he pulls them on. The wasteland of his stomach and chest blooms with new color. Neil presses it with careful fingers, but the pain is negligible so he ignores it and pulls on his shirt and sweatshirt before creeping back into the locker room. 

Neil freezes. Andrew is straddling the wooden bench that runs the length of the room between the lockers and  _ Neil hadn’t heard him enter. _ Neil’s heartbeat rings in his ears louder than any drum, terror bringing the taste of vomit to the back of his throat.  _ How could he be so careless? _

He is a rat in a trap and  _ his father is coming. _ Neil stumbles backwards, feet slipping in the water as he slams into the lockers with an ear shattering clamor. “Calm down!” Andrew snaps, and unbelievably, Neil does. “I told you I wouldn’t let anyone touch you.”

“Too late,” Neil mutters, hand prodding his bruise again as he leans against the lockers, willing his pulse to settle back down. 

“What,” Neil looks up to find Andrew staring at him with an intensity Neil’s never seen before, “did you say?” Andrew stands up and is in front of Neil before he can blink. Strangely, Neil feels no urge to retreat. His heart finally slows to its regular rhythm. Andrew’s hands twitch, but he doesn’t touch Neil. 

“It’s nothing,” Neil says, “I’m fine.”

Andrew’s chin juts out aggressively. “I kept my word and got you on the court. You will not lie to me.” 

Neil wasn’t lying, it hadn’t even occurred to him that Andrew would care. It’s not like Dulles’ even hurt him, but Neil had promised to give Andrew as much truth as he could, and this particular truth costs him nothing. 

Neil’s hands twitch at his hemline. He is always careful to hide his bare skin from prying eyes, but the room he shares with Andrew is small, and privacy is limited, it's only a matter of time before he sees all of Neil anyway, and Andrew doesn’t strike Neil as the kind of person to shy away from ugliness. 

Andrew holds Neil’s eyes as he inches his clothes up just high enough to reveal the bruise. It’s not until Neil’s hands stop moving that Andrew drops his eyes to look. Neil doesn’t bother looking, he knows what he looks like. He clenches his hands into fists and stares at the peeling paint above the lockers across from him. 

Andrew doesn’t touch him, but his muscles lock and he stands so frozen that he’s barely breathing. Besides the lurid purple of the bruise, Andrew can see the tail end of the road rash that wraps around Neils side from when his mother shoved him out of a car when he was twelve. Or maybe he’s looking at the vicious and uneven line from the time Neil tore himself open getting away from the curved blade Lola was teasing his belly button with. That line terminates at Neil’s hip, where the blade had been jerked from Lola’s hand when it ran into his bone. He has other scars too, but they aren’t nearly as eye catching.

Neil drops his shirt when Andrew looks away. There is no pity in his eyes when he looks at Neil, just that odd intensity that Neil doesn’t understand. “Who?” he asks softly, as if Neil can’t see the way Andrew’s knuckles have gone white from how hard he’s clenching his fists.

“Which one?” Neil asks. It’s a weak attempt at a joke that falls flat even to his own ears. Andrew just waits silently until Neil sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “It seems like Dulles and Thompson are friends,” he says finally.

Andrew nods and steps back, out of Neil’s space. “It will not happen again,” Andrew promises. 

Neil shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not scared of him.”

“It will not,” Andrew repeats, “happen again.”

The bell rings, loud in the silence, and Neil follows Andrew to dinner. 

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have some more protective Andrew, as a treat

Neil enters the cafeteria for breakfast the next morning and pauses, heart thumping. Moving on instinct he slips out of the line for food and hugs the wall, eyes finding each exit and hiding place on their way to Andrew. Neil frowns, Andrew looks entirely at ease, leaning against the wall at their usual table, one knee propping open his book while he shovels spoonfuls of over sweetened oatmeal into his mouth. 

Andrew’s sense of impending danger is almost as strong as Neil’s, but it's clear that Andrew can’t feel the tension in the air, the rumble of nervous boys. How does he not see the way the guards are standing, hands on their short batons and plastic hand ties?

Maybe Neil is just paranoid. Does it count as paranoia if people really are trying to kill you? Neil inches around the other boys and sticks to the outskirts of the room. Everything is screaming at him to run, but he’s a rat in a trap. The safest place for him is next to Andrew, who would at least notice if he got snatched.  _ The safest place for Andrew is far away from me _ . Neil freezes for a moment, but he can’t make himself move away from his room mate. The guilt chokes him. 

“Not hungry?” Andrew asks, not looking up from his book. 

“I - no, I am,” Neil mutters, shooting another wary glance around the room. The exy team sits together at a table near the center of the room. Dulles glares at him furiously and leans in close to a boy in a cast to whisper something. The boy looks at Andrew with murder in his eyes. It’s the worst thing he could have done. Neil waits until the boy glances in his direction, catches his eye and lets his fathers disturbing grin creep over his face. 

The boy, Thompson probably, looks back at his potatoes. “Remind me why you broke his leg,” Neil says, eyeing Andrew’s untouched eggs. 

“I promised you a chance to make the team. You didn’t stipulate how. Try it and I shank you,” Andrew slaps Neil’s hands away from his breakfast. “Go fetch your own. I won’t listen to you bitch later because you’re hungry.”

Neil tries turning his fathers grin on his roommate, but he can’t hold the expression in the face of Andrew’s apathy. He mutters something unflattering and clambers back to his feet. Neil doesn’t skulk through the room with this time, the heaviness in his chest isn’t gone, exactly, but it's no longer suffocating. 

The buffet has been picked over, but Neil makes do with a yogurt container, the crumbs of the granola and a bruised apple. He picks up his meager breakfast and carries it back to their table, neatly sidestepping the foot a backliner sticks out to trip him with. He slumps back into his seat and opens his yogurt, he starts to say something, but before he can, he frowns and tilts his head to the side, “what’s that?” 

Neil can hear a blaring noise through the thick walls, flashing red lights draw his attention out the window towards the yard. 

“Finally,” Andrew sighs, finally plopping his book face down on the table. The spine is so broken that it lays flat, despite being left open. “That, little runaway, is the alarm.”

Neil jerks back so hard his knees slam into the top of the table with bruising force.  _ They’ve come for him, they’ve found him, he has to - _ Neil finds his feet. 

“Watch it!” Andrew hisses, looking at his spilled juice in disgust. Neil makes it two steps before Andrew’s hand lashes out and locks around Neil’s wrist, yanking him back onto the bench next to Andrew. “Enough,” Andrew snaps, one hand finding the back of Neil’s neck, heavy enough to hold him down. “Settle down, no one's coming for you. It’s just a little fire in the yard.”

Neil sags helplessly, twitching with unspent adrenaline. “How do you know?” he asks, when he can breathe. Andrew just stares at him until Neil gets it. “Oh,” he says, “but why would you-”

“Hush now,” Andrew orders and Neil bites his tongue, frustration racing through him, “look.”

The guards have gathered in a clump by the doors, talking urgently into their walkie-talkies and glaring around at the boys, who have fallen into an uncomfortable silence. One of the guards, a sallow faced man named Pablo gestures at the others, who file out of the room. Through a window, Neil can see the commotion in the yard, smoke billowing up from behind the shed that Andrew likes to loiter around when they go outside. 

“Sit tight, boys!” Pablo calls, “We’re going on lockdown! Finish your food and don’t kill each other, this should only take a few minutes.”

Then he’s gone too. The doors lock behind him, leaving sixty-five troubled youths without supervision and no way out unless the fire reaches the main building and triggers the detectors. This does not seem like a very good policy to Neil, but he’s not a warden or a developmental psychologist, so what does he know?

Apparently, more than they do, because as soon as the lock clicks closed, chaos erupts. 

There are no shortages of scores to settle in a juvenile detention center that’s populated by mostly privileged teenage boys who are facing the first consequences in their lives. The Oakland Correctional Facility is more of a school than a jail, and a sentence served here usually counts as a win for the fancy lawyers who represent rich, Bay Area families with “troubled” sons. Neil got lucky, being placed here, and Andrew really doesn’t fit the mold. There’s a story there, Neil is sure, but it’s hardly fair to ask for it before he’s kept up his side of their bargain.

Fights break out in clumps across the room. Neil puts his back to the wall and watches as the boys take advantage of the opportunity. Food is stolen, homework is torn up, a few noses are broken. Nothing that interests Neil over much, he is content to watch from the sidelines next to Andrew. 

But Andrew slips his hand into his pocket and stands up, walking purposefully across the cafeteria. At first Neil thinks he's going to break up a tussle between the boy he left the cafeteria with yesterday and his room mate, but Andrew walks right by them without even glancing over. Fights slow and stop as he passes, boys silently clearing out of his way. Neil hurries behind him until Andrew turns around. “Sit down,” he orders, “and shut up.” Neil recognizes the glint of a blade in Andrew’s hand and swallows. He can feel the phantom saw of his skin tearing open beneath the flick of his fathers fingers, sees a flash of Lola’s chilling, delighted smile, feels Romero’s sausage fingers holding him down as they sharpen their blades on his bones. Neil sits and watches. 

Dulles never sees Andrew coming. He’s on top of a boy in Neil’s math class, chasing fist with fist into his stomach and face as his friends snicker and urge him on. Andrew winds one hand in his greasy hair and yanks him away from his victim, baring his throat and bringing up the shiv to rest lightly upon Dulles’ adam’s apple. It’s a piece of broken mirror, Neil realizes, one end wrapped in a few pages from Andrew’s novel to protect his hand from the worst of the damage. 

Apart from Dulles’ startled howl and the slide and squeak of his sneakers sliding uselessly on the linoleum, the room falls deathly silent, all eyes watching the show with curiosity, fear or pleasure. Dulles grips Andrew’s arm and yanks uselessly, looking to his friends for help. They all avoid his gaze. It's a ridiculous tableau, but Neil swallows his laughter. Andrew is almost a full foot shorter than the older boy, but he has him effectively pinned. Neil’s amusement fades as quickly as it rises, blades have a way of shifting the advantage. 

Dulles swings back his elbow into Andrew’s sternum. Andrew huffs as his air is expelled and the shiv slips, neatly slicing a line across Dulles’ vulnerable throat. He stills instantly, growl turning into a frightened whine. 

“Do I have your attention?” Andrew asks softly. His words are directed at Dulles, but his eyes flit briefly to Neil. “Tell me Dulles, because I want you to understand me.” 

Andrew shakes his fist, still gripped cruelly in Dulles’ hair until the other boy spits out a pained “yes!”

“You did a bad thing, Jake. Do you know what it was?” 

“Get off me, you fucking freak!” Dulles grits out, writhing against Andrew’s vicious grip. All Neil can do is stare in confusion. What did Dulles do to Andrew?

“Is that a no? Does anyone know what Dulles did?” Andrew looks around pointedly at the exy team. “No? Really? Because I heard that you all watched, so now you’re going to see this too.” Blood slides down Dulles’ necks, a gentle drip of crimson painting Andrew’s hands. It’s not all Dulles’, Andrew’s grip on the shiv is tight enough that the papers have begun to fray, shallowly slicing his hand. 

Neil forgets the threat in Andrew’s eyes and creeps closer. He’s not sure what he can do, but he doesn’t like the idea of all that sharp glass so close to Andrew’s tendons. If he accidentally slices too many he’ll lose his grip. “Ah, perfect timing,” Andrew murmurs, not looking up at Neil’s approach. “Pay attention,” he commands, as if anyone is distracted. 

Andrew tightens his grip on Dulles’ hair and yanks his head further back as he pulls the shiv away, spinning it neatly so that the red-tinged papers are pointed towards Neil. Neil wills his hands not to shake as he plucks the weapon from Andrew’s hand. Neil spins it between his fingers reflexively, getting a feel for its balance and weight as he looks around the room. Now that the blade is out of Andrew’s hands, Dulles’ buddies might get brave. Neil still doesn’t know why Andrew is doing what he’s doing, but he won’t let him get jumped for it. 

Andrew brings one heavy fist into Dulles’ kidneys hard enough to make the bigger boy collapse with a pained groan. Andrew follows him down, swinging one leg over Dulles’ torso to straddle him, one hand wrapping around his throat. He looks up again at his audience. “Do not touch what is mine,” he bites out, and then breaks Dulles’ nose with his fist. The crunch of cartilage is audible. The boy Andrew vanished with the other day flinches. His face is freshly bruising, but he can't tear his eyes away from Andrew. “Do you understand?” Andrew blackens Dulles’ left eye. “Does everyone understand?” Andrew looks around and meets the eyes of everyone in the room, focusing specifically on the exy team. Andrew holds Neil’s eyes as he sinks one final fist into Dulles’ torso, precisely where Dulles’ had hit Neil the day before. 

_ Oh.  _ Realization finally dawns.  _ “It will not happen again,” _ Andrew had said in the locker room. “ _ I promised that no one would touch you.” _

Andrew suddenly looks bored again and stands up, flexing his hands against the soreness. He brushes past Neil and walks back to their table, ignoring the way everyone in the room is watching him. Neil finally understands why Duane and the others fear him, but he’s not scared of Andrew, he’s just angry about all the attention he’s focusing on Neil. And all over a stupid punch that didn’t even hurt that much. 

Neil follows him back to the table, muscles twitching at all the gazes that linger on his back, skittering away when he turns to glare at them. “What were you thinking?” Neil demands as soon as they sit down. He passes the shiv back to Andrew underneath the table and glares at him. “That was unbelievably stupid.” Andrew takes the blade and disappears it up his sleeve, into one of his makeshift armbands that he never seems to take off. He steals Neil’s water and napkin and cleans his hands with fastidious care. 

Andrew finally looks up, but it's only to rest blank eyes on Neil for a moment, before he picks up his book and begins to read, ignoring Neil completely. Neil smacks the book back down, “Andrew!” The look Andrew shoots him is murderous, so Neil lowers his voice. “Andrew, Dulles didn’t hurt me. All you’ve done is drawn attention to us. I  _ need _ to lay low and stay under the radar.”

“What you  _ need _ is to hold up your end of the bargain,” Andrew snaps. “I made you a promise and I’ve kept it, if you break our deal I’ll make you bleed next.” Neil thinks about the jut of glass he just returned to Andrew, remembers how easily Andrew had wielded it and how very vulnerable Neil is each night, locked in a room with him. The fear he feels is a pale shadow of what it should be at the prospect. 

“And what about when Dulles tells the guards what you did? You think they’ll let you stay here? How can you keep your promise or collect on mine when they transfer you? I was  _ fine _ , Andrew, you saw my scars, do you really think I can’t handle  _ Dulles?” _

Andrew’s eyes, normally almost golden in the light, turn hard and flinty. “It’s not about what you can handle,” he says, voice low and vicious. His blunt fingernails dig into his book hard enough to leave faint blood stains and half moon impressions. “It’s about me keeping my promise. Save your words for later, you'll need them."

_ My mom tried to keep me safe, _ Neil wants to argue,  _ and it killed her. _ Neil grits his teeth together until they ache and glares daggers at anyone who looks their way. It keeps him busy until the guards extinguish the fire in the yard and return to escort everyone back to their rooms. 

Despite everything, Neil feels a bit of satisfaction when Dulles' is sent to the infirmary instead. 

\--

As soon as the door of their room clicks shut behind them, Andrew rounds on Neil. “You have until I destroy this -” he dangles the mirror shard in front of Neil’s face between two fingers, reflecting brief slivers of his fathers face back at him. “To say goodbye to all of your lies. When I come back, you  _ will  _ tell me everything.”

Neil swallows his fears and nods. He paces while he waits, watching as Andrew takes the shiv into the bathroom and shatters it into the toilet bowl before flushing it several times to get rid of every trace of the weapon. He washes his hands thoroughly and winds a towel around the slices on his hands. 

Neil gnaws on his lips, biting at the skin until strips of it peel away. He tastes blood in his mouth.  _ He’s going to do it, _ he realizes,  _ he’s going to tell Andrew the truth. _ He could lie, make up another sob story to explain his flightiness, but the thought of breaking his promise when Andrew has kept his makes him feel nauseous.  _ Since when does he care about betraying people? _

Andrew comes back into the room, perches himself on the desk and waits, staring at Neil with his customary heavy gaze. 

“My name was Nathaniel Wesninski, and I was born in Baltimore” Neil begins. He continues to pace, unable to look at his friend as he tells his story, unwilling to watch that nothingness dissolve into disgust or fear. “My father is a cruel man, a monster. The media took to calling him a “Butcher” back when the police used to find his victims. He liked to hurt me and my mother, but he always let me play Exy. It was supposed to be my ticket away from him. When I was ten I was invited to play at Evermore, a scrimmage with Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama. I guess he realized he was losing control of me and planned to kill me, because that night my mother took me and we ran.”

Neil remembers that night, how excitement and pride had turned into fear and confusion as his mother bundled him up in the car in the predawn hours. He remembers how surprised he had been when instead of answering his questions she had slapped him across the face and forced him into the backseat, covered with blankets and coats and bags so he couldn’t be seen. It was the first time she had ever struck him, but far from the last. 

“My mother belonged to a small but powerful family in England, and she used her contacts to get us out of the city. She changed my name and dyed my hair and told me to forget everything that came before we left. We travelled constantly, we were in Europe for a while, but she didn’t like to be so close to her family, so we came back when we heard that my father got arrested. He kept chasing us, probably because my mom stole a bunch of money, but also because it didn’t look good, him being unable to control his own wife and child.”

Neil falls silent, he wants to look at Andrew but he doesn’t dare. He waits for Andrew to say something, but he doesn’t. Neil takes a deep breath and continues talking. 

“Even after he was arrested, his people didn’t stop chasing us. I’ve been eighteen different people in five years. They caught up to us in Seattle,” Neil’s voice breaks. He clears his throat and forces out the rest of his story. “I still don’t know how they  _ always  _ found us. We were so, so careful. We were hiding in a warehouse and one of them hit her with a pipe, he dropped it when he realized she was helpless. He was going to rape her, so I picked it up and crushed his skull. They always forgot that I am my fathers son,” Neil muses, “I think that’s why I always had to change my coloring, she couldn’t stand how much I look like him. Anyway, I got us to a car and drove south. She didn’t tell me she was dying. I didn’t realize until it was too late. I found an empty stretch of beach just north of San Francisco where we had stashed some money and papers and I-” Neil heaves suddenly, barely making it to the metal toilet before he throws up his meager breakfast. It’s too much, he has never told this story and he avoids thinking about the people he’s killed and the greasy texture of his mothers bones when he handled them. He still feels it sometimes, under his fingernails, no matter how often he washes his hands. The taste of blood in his mouth turns to rust and threatens to choke him. 

Neil doesn’t hear him approach, but Andrew’s hand settles on his neck, cool and solid. “I burned her body, buried her bones and became Neil Josten. I guess someone saw the flames and called 911, because the cops came. They only asked about the stolen car, so I don’t think they found her body. Andrew?”

Neil finally looks up, meets Andrew’s eyes. Andrew doesn’t look away. _Andrew_ _ doesn’t look away.  _ He stares back steadily, no trace of fear or pity or disgust. “You can’t protect me from my fathers people,” Neil says. “We left a mess in Seattle and I’m stuck here. It’s a miracle they haven’t found me already. You have to stay away from me.”

Andrew flushes the toilet and tugs Neil around until they’re facing each other, his other hand finding the back of Neil's neck too. The touch is too firm to be gentle, but it’s settling and Neil tries to remember the last person who touched him without causing him pain. His memory doesn't stretch back that far.

“I will protect you,” Andrew says. He states it like a fact, like it’s already been done. His tone brooks no argument, and Neil is too spent to think of one. He can’t stop staring back at Andrew, and they sit there, on the cold concrete floor of the bathroom until the lights click off. 

That night, as he waits for the nightmares that will inevitably come, Neil replays Andrew’s words in his mind. “ _ I will protect you,”  _ and  _ “it will not happen again.” _ They’re lies, they have to be, but they taste like truth when Neil whispers them to himself in the broken darkness. 

Hope is a dangerous, disquieting thing, but Neil thinks he rather likes it. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so next update should be on Thursday, if I can keep my shit together. there's a full update schedule for all my fics for the rest of the month on my Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/elesary
> 
> I added a chapter count, but I'm sure it will change. I have the whole story planned out, but somethings will probably take longer than anticipated to reach.
> 
> as always, thank you for reading and please let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok. who's ready for some plot???
> 
> also. okay. here's the thing. I don't love the idea of writing any sex stuff for minors I think its super creepy now that I'm an adult, but some of these characters canonically experiment in juvie, and I think I have to include that for the character and story to work. I've added the underage content warning just to be safe, but it shouldn't be too necessary too often.

Neil doesn’t like much about Oakland Correctional, but if he had to pick something, it would be Sundays. All week, he’s subjected to a mind numbing routine of classes and therapy and shitty food, broken only by the few hours he’s allowed on the half court, facing off against Andrew. Saturdays are often used for small group outings, that most of the boys look forward to all week, but Neil hates them. Usually it's a trip to the beach or a museum or sometimes a shopping mall, none of which hold much appeal for Neil, especially not the beach. He and Andrew are in separate groups and being outside with no one to watch his back makes him feel twitchy and exposed and desperate. He could run, he supposes, but they put ankle monitors on them before the buses leave and Neil doesn’t think he’d have time to collect his stash and remove it before he was found. 

Still, he keeps that plan in his back pocket, just in case.

Sundays, though. Neil likes Sundays. Sunday is visiting day at Oakland Correctional, meaning that all the guards and boys are distracted and busy and there’s nothing Neil has to do. He and Andrew don’t get any visitors so Andrew usually lets Neil convince him to spend extra time on the court, just the two of them. 

On Sunday, Neil hurries through his breakfast and ignores the thrum of excited conversation in the cafeteria from all the boys waiting to be called to meet their families and friends. Andrew watches him over the rim of his mug with unconcealed disgust. “You’re like a drug addict,” he informs Neil, “a fucking exy junkie.”

Neil shrugs. “There are worse things,” he says around a mouthful of toast. 

“If you say so,” Andrew replies disagreeably. 

Neil rolls his eyes and chugs the rest of his tea. “Ready?” he prompts, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. From the doorway, Pablo calls the first group of guys to the visiting rooms. 

“Hmm,” Andrew’s eyes focus on something over Neil’s shoulder. “I have something I have to do first. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”

Neil doesn’t know what Andrew could possibly have to do, but he shrugs and gets up. He won’t argue with the chance to run for a few extra minutes, a luxury that Andrew usually won’t tolerate. 

Neil dodges a few groups of boys on their way to and from their visits on his way to the court. Since Andrew’s little display last week, most people steer clear of him, which Neil appreciates. The rest of the exy team sneer at him behind his back, but dirty looks can’t hurt him, so he doesn’t care. Especially not today, when he has a few glorious hours of exy practice ahead of him. 

It’s not til he’s in his gear and staring at his court shoes that he realizes that he forgot socks. Neil swears and looks around, but there’s nothing to do but go back to his room and get another pair. He looks mournfully at the thin pair that he’s wearing, but they aren’t thick enough to prevent him from getting blisters in his too large shoes. He considers wearing them anyway, but dismisses that idea soon enough. There is nothing in the world more precious to Neil than his feet, and he won’t risk them for something this petty. 

He pulls off his pads with a sigh, resigning himself to the fact that he’s losing his run, and slides his feet back into rubber sandals provided for him. The halls are mostly empty as he jogs back to his room, and he’s too preoccupied thinking about the drills he wants to run to notice that his door is almost closed, when it should be open. 

He pushes it open without thinking, and freezes in the doorway. It’s Andrew and that blonde boy who keeps looking at him in the cafeteria. Neil blinks. Andrew has the blonde pinned against the wall directly across from Neil and at first he thinks Andrew's hurting him. The boy’s eyes are closed and little whines are leaking from his mouth, both hands held above his head by one of Andrew’s. Andrew’s mouth is on his neck and his other hand is down the blonde’s sweatpants, shoulder flexing rhythmically.

_ Oh.  _

Neil retreats so fast his elbow hits the door and sends it crashing against the wall and pain shooting down his fingers. Neil sees Andrew’s head turn and ducks back into the hall, jogging back to the court. 

The thin socks are long, climbing up his calf muscles, so Neil rolls them back down over his feet to create another layer before he tries his shoes on. They’re still a bit loose, but it’s nothing too bad, so he picks up his racquet and helmet and steps onto the court. 

He collects a bucket of balls and spills them across the scuffed floor. The familiar smell of the court calms his stomach, which has been tight and uncomfortable since he opened the door to his room. He scoops up a ball and sends it flying into the goal with a flick of his wrist. He hits another, and another. The soothing rhythm clears his mind, but it keeps circling back to the image of the blonde’s face, screwed up and red over Andrew’s flexing shoulder as he-

The door to the court slams shut behind Andrew. Neil doesn’t look at him until Andrew takes his place in front of the goal. “Hey,” Neil says, clearing his voice to make sure it doesn’t break. 

Andrew stares at him, waiting. Neil bounces the ball uncomfortably. He - doesn’t know how he feels. He’s not - he’s not mad, or sad or - or anything. It’s just- surprising, that’s all. Neil bounces the ball against the floor and swings his racquet. It hits the back of the goal with a satisfying smack and bounces back towards Neil. Andrew doesn’t even look at it. Neil scowls and fires another shot. Andrew ignores that one two. 

Neil feels jittery, like he’s chugged a Big Gulp full of espresso. He wants to run, excise some of this energy, but there’s  _ nowhere  _ to go. “Spit it out,” Andrew demands, glaring at Neil through narrowed eyes. 

Neil scowls back at Andrew even though he’s not mad at  _ him.  _ He scuffs his shoe on the floor, and then does it again for the satisfying squeak. “I just don’t get it,” he snaps mulishly, when it becomes clear that Andrew has no intention of actually guarding the goal until he does. 

Andrew’s jaw works, and his eyes harden even further. His hands drift to his forearms, and squeeze hard. “How a man can want to have sex with a man? Genetics, I’ve been told. Or Satan. I have an uncle who _ really _ thinks it’s Satan. If you’re asking about the mechanics-”

“What?” Neil yelps, “No!” Andrew’s face tightens even further, a hint of disgust at  _ Neil  _ creeping through. Neil grits his teeth and glares back. He’s gotten this reaction before, during one of the few health classes he was in at a public school he went to for a few weeks back in Park City. _Why?_ Neil had thought it was a simple question, but the way the whole class had looked at him… 

Neil clenches his fist around his racquet, heart hammering in his chest. He hadn’t thought Andrew would feel like that too. “I won’t bring it up again,” he bites out. 

“Best not,” Andrew agrees. 

“If you need space to - or whatever - I can leave you alone. Give you more time with your boyfriend. You could have told me I was intruding,” Neil says miserably. He hadn’t seen it, but  _ this _ has always been his blindspot. He taps his racquet on the floor and awkwardly turns to leave or - something. 

“You what?” Andrew says sharply. He sounds more confused than Neil has ever heard him before. Neil risks looking over at him. Andrew’s blond brows are furrowed over his frown. “Neil. What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know how I could have been more clear!” Neil snaps, flinty temper finally sparking through his confusion and disappointment. “I get that I’m a  _ freak _ , but I told you I wouldn’t make you listen to it and that I’d give you time with what's his name, so can we just play exy and forget about it?”

“Neil,” Andrew says, taking two steps forward. “You don’t have a problem with me being gay?”

“What? No, of course not!” Neil fully looks at Andrew, who is still staring at Neil like he's grown a second head. 

“Then what don’t you understand? What’s malfunctioning in that rabbity brain of yours?” Andrew slowly reaches out and raps his knuckles against Neil’s helmet. 

Neil grits his teeth, viciously wishing he could go back in time and avoid this whole conversation. “I just don’t understand sex, okay? I don’t get the appeal or - or how you pick your partner or why people care so much about it!” 

“Neil,” Andrew says, looking at his face searchingly. “I thought you were being a homophobic shithead. In retrospect, I should have known you were just being an idiot.”

“Not wanting to have sex  _ doesn’t  _ make me stupid,” Neil says hotly. 

Andrew grips Neil’s face guards and uses it to rattle his head. “Of course not. But you’re still an idiot.”

Neil sneers. “Can we play now? Or - or did you need to, uh, finish up with your boyfriend?” He feels uncomfortable about the whole thing still, but- 

“Collins isn’t important. He was just convenient and interested.”

“I don’t understand.” Neil says, “if you don’t like him, then why…” he trails off, shifts his weight to his other foot. 

Andrew’s scrutinizing him again. He sighs and sits down, crossing his legs and leaning back on his arms. “You’ve really never been attracted to anyone before?”

Neil sits too, pulling his knees to his chest. “No,” he frowns, thinking back. “There was this girl up in Ottawa. She took me to the back of the parking lot and kissed me. My mom saw, and she was so mad she broke all my pinkies, fingers and toes. She thought girls would distract me, make me slip up and tell them things I shouldn’t. She didn’t believe me when I told her I didn’t feel anything and that I wouldn’t do it again.” 

Andrew blinks back at him calmly, but his hands are clenched  _ tight _ around the neck of his racquet. It looks like it takes effort, but he releases them one by one. “I don’t think your mom and I would have gotten along,” he says finally. “Especially when I told her she wasn’t allowed to hurt you anymore.”

“She probably would have shot you,” Neil muses. “Can we play exy now?” He doesn't want to talk about his mother, even thinking about her hurts. Andrew heaves a put upon sigh, but gets up and goes back to the goal.

Neil still hasn’t scored yet when a knock on the plexi-glass startles him. He and Andrew look over and see Pablo waving them over. “What does he want?” Neil grouses, they  _ just  _ started.

Andrew shoots him a bland look and jerks his head at Neil, silently ordering him to go find out. Neil sneers back at him, but obediently jogs off to find out. “Doe, you've got a visitor,” Pablo says, loudly enough that Andrew can hear, “say’s he’s your brother. I think he’s here with your mom.”

“I don’t have a mom,” Andrew replies automatically, but he’s gone very, very still. Neil shoots him a concerned glance, immediately abandoning Pablo to return to Andrew’s side. He’s careful to stay just far enough away not to crowd the other boy. “Tell me he’s not that pathetic and desperate,” Andrew spits, looking at Neil. His eyes are wild with rage, but there’s a protective edge to them that Neil has only seen directed at him. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, “do you want me to come with you?”

“No point,” Andrew snaps, “they won’t be staying long. I told him to fuck off, but maybe he needs to hear it again, in person.”

Neil shrugs, he doesn't know enough about family to have an opinion about this. Andrew eyes Pablo carefully before ambling off to the locker room to change. Neil ignores the guard and runs his drills. As much as Andrew claims to hate exy, he knows a lot about it, and has been unfailingly living up to his promise to “give” Neil the sport. That includes thinking up drills for Neil to help him hone his skills as a striker, spending most of their free time on the court, and most of all, actually participating when Neil shoots on him. Neil still isn’t good enough to score on Andrew, but he’s getting better under Andrew’s apathetic tutelage. 

“Josten!” Pablo calls a few minutes later, lowering his walkie-talkie back to it's holster on his belt. “You’re needed up front too, the FBI are back with some more questions!” Neil stumbles, barely catching himself before he trips over his own feet. He doesn’t want to talk to the FBI again, it's too dangerous. His hair has grown out enough that a seam of auburn is visible if you know what to look for. He looks too much like his father to have any contact with law enforcement. Neil can only hope that San Francisco is too far from the Butchers territory for his face to be recognized in his sons. 

Neil hasn’t been sweating long enough to need a shower, and he’s hoping that his non-answers will frustrate the agents quickly enough that he and Andrew will be able to return to the court after their interruptions, although he doubts his roommate will agree. He scowls with frustration but joins Pablo to wait for Andrew. 

“Did you see the brother?” he asks, unable to suppress his curiosity without exy to distract him. 

Pablo shakes his head. “I didn’t even know he had a brother. You know he’s a foster kid, right?” Neil nods, Andrew doesn’t talk about his background all that much, but his last name is a dead giveaway and he’d dropped enough hints that Neil had been able to put that much together at least. “It’s kinda funny, actually,” Pablo muses, running one hand across his greasy goatee in an unconsciously loving manner. “He was about to be adopted by this great family, paperwork was about to get filed and everything but it got held up because his real uncle got involved. Said something about Andrew’s mom wanting to make amends for her past mistakes. Turns out, Andrew’s got an identical twin brother out there somewhere, crazy innit? Can you imagine two of him?” 

Neil can’t, but he doesn’t react. He feels frozen. He should tell Pablo to shut up, if Andrew wanted him to know this, he would tell Neil himself. But Neil can’t make himself stop listening. 

“So he’s right on the verge of getting two families - seems like they were getting chummy too, wanting to meet up and everything - and what does Doe do? He gets himself locked up in here for stealing the Spears car. It’s a shame really, the trouble he’s caused two good families.” Pablo tsks and shakes his head, before seeming to catch himself and looking around guiltily. “Hey, don’t tell anyone I told you all that, okay kid?”

Neil doesn’t think that's funny at all, so he doesn't  bother replying. Andrew exits the locker room and Neil focuses on wiping all expression from his face. Andrew narrows his eyes when he realizes Neil is coming with them, but he doesn’t say anything, just puts himself between Neil and Pablo. 

The short walk to the front of the facility is quiet. Neil gnaws his lip and thinks about what Pablo told him. Andrew isn’t crazy or entitled enough to steal a car for no reason. And he’s loyal, so if he rejected one family and turned his back on the other…  _ I have an uncle who really thinks it Satan,  _ Andrew had said. Maybe they couldn’t accept him? 

They turn a corner and Andrew freezes. Neil follows his gaze into a visiting room with an open door. A mousy woman is sitting in a chair, looking up at a tank-like man in a Marine’s uniform with clear adoration. The Marine looks up and spots Andrew, smiling widely, but something about it turns Neil’s stomach. Before he sees anything else, Andrew turns and shoves him, hard, back around the corner. Neil hits the wall, breath leaving him on impact. He’s too shocked to react with anything but a wheeze before Andrew rounds on Pablo. “Why is he here?” Andrew snarls, jerking a thumb aggressively at Neil. “I thought visits  _ with family _ were private? Get him the fuck away from here!” He doesn’t even look at Neil before he turns on his heel and marches into the door, posture stiff and uncomfortable. Neil watches, absently rubbing at his new bruise, until the door slams behind him.

“The fuck was that about?” Pablo asks, “Crazy little psycho.” Neil doesn’t know what just happened, but he hadn’t expected such an outright rejection from Andrew. He replays the encounter in his head, had he overstepped a boundary? Andrew had only reacted when they had turned the corner and Neil had spotted his… foster family? Must be, Pablo had said that his birth brother was a twin, an  _ identical _ one. 

Neil’s stomach suddenly drops to his toes. Just last week Neil had told Andrew that he had killed people. He’d told Andrew who’s blood ran through his veins. What if… what if Andrew couldn’t risk exposing someone like Neil to his family? Maybe he thought Neil would hurt them, if he got the chance. 

No matter how hard Neil rubs his chest, the pain lingers. 

“C’mon, kid.” Pablo says, “we can’t keep the FBI waiting.” Neil follows on numb feet. He  _ wouldn’t _ hurt anyone Andrew cared about. He wasn’t his father. _ He wasn’t. _

The agent is waiting in the room next door to the one Andrew had gone into, slamming to door between them to _protect his family from Neil_. Pablo shuts the door behind Neil, leaving him alone with the agent. There's just one this time, sitting at the table, face covered by the brim of his hat. The lock clicks behind Neil, and the agent looks up. 

“Hello, Junior,” says Romero Malcolm. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmm sorry?
> 
> let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> you can check my Tumblr (elesary) for an update schedule for this story and all my others!
> 
> thanks for reading!


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